Topless club investor welcomes licensing investigation

Thursday, June 19, 2003 | 11:16 a.m.

A major partner in the newly opened Sapphire topless club said Wednesday that he welcomes a licensing investigation into the backgrounds of a half-dozen previously undisclosed investors in the Las Vegas business.

"They'll come forward and they'll be licensed," said D. Michael Talla, a Los Angeles businessman and real estate developer. "They're totally suitable."

Talla, whose company, SHAC MT, owns a 50 percent interest in the Sapphire club, was reacting to word that Clark County business license investigators plan to conduct background checks into the six silent partners brought in by Talla.

The investors were disclosed last month under pressure from longtime topless nightclub operator Pete Eliades, whose company, SHAC Eliades, owns the other 50 percent of Sapphire, which opened last December. The Talla and Eliades companies operate Sapphire under a company called SHAC LLC.

Eliades and Talla, who runs several athletic clubs throughout the country, have become embroiled in a battle for control of the 71,000-square-foot Sapphire, which is billed as the world's largest strip club.

Talla filed suit in District Court late last week against Eliades and SHAC Eliades, alleging Eliades was interfering with his business interests at Sapphire and Olympic Garden, another topless club jointly owned by Talla and Eliades.

Talla asked District Judge Jennifer Togliatti to modify his agreements with Eliades to give him sole possession of Sapphire and leave Olympic Garden to Eliades.

Eliades and his Las Vegas lawyer, Mark Tratos, denied Talla's allegations Wednesday, and they accused Talla of deliberately withholding the names of the six hidden partners from Eliades and licensing authorities. Eliades and Tratos plan to file a countersuit against Talla in the coming days.

Talla called their accusations "absurd" and "ridiculous" and said he was confident he would prevail in court.

"At the end of the day the judge will decide what's fair," he said. "I've made full disclosure. Some of those partners were admitted after we got the licenses."

But Eliades countered: "He never would have disclosed these names if I hadn't brought it to his attention. My attorney reported it to authorities."

Talla acknowledged Wednesday that three of the just-disclosed partners are attorneys in the Los Angeles law firm that helped him put together the $25 million deal with Eliades to purchase the old Sporting House Athletic Club, 3025 S. Industrial Road, and convert it to the Sapphire club.

The attorneys, Lee Poster, Peter Alpert and Sheldon Berger, are members of Resch Polster Alpert & Berger, a firm that specializes in real estate and corporate law.

The firm's senior partner, Ronald Resch, said in a telephone interview from Los Angeles that none of the three lawyers were involved in the Sapphire negotiations and they have no conflict of interest. He described their investments as "relatively minor."

In a May 14 letter to the county's Department of Business Licenses, Talla said the three lawyers became nonvoting partners on Dec. 15, two days after Sapphire opened its doors. They formed a company called Badda Bing Partners, each investing $47,619 in Sapphire, he said.

Talla told the Las Vegas Sun Wednesday that the attorneys also each invested the same amount in the Olympic Garden. He said another company he runs, OG-LA, co-owns the Olympic Garden with Eliades.

"Badda Bing's overall interest in Sapphire is .5 percent," Talla explained in his letter to the county.

Talla would not give the Sun details about the other three investors, Robert Shipp of Los Angeles, John Moller of Malibu and George Vasilakos of Las Vegas. But Talla told the county their interests in Sapphire totaled about 10.6 percent. Talla listed himself as having a 20.6 percent interest in Sapphire and two previously disclosed partners, Rex A. Licklider and SHAC Feinstein, as having a combined investment of 18.3 percent.

On Wednesday, Ardel Jorgenson, the county's business license director, said investigators planned to take an "in-depth" look into the claims of hidden ownership in Talla's share of Sapphire. She would not say whether sanctions would be sought against Talla for not disclosing the additional partners earlier.

Jim DiFiore, manager of the city's Business Services Division, said his agency hasn't decided whether the new disclosures have a bearing on the license of the Olympic Garden, which is in the city.